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‘Not Proper for Me to Ask:’ Shanghai Doctor Says Hospital Covering Up COVID-19 Cases

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A suspected wave of COVID-19 infections has hit local Shanghai hospitals as the country grapples with a record coronavirus surge. The Epoch Times learned outbreaks were hidden from hospital workers and local authorities.

In the past few days, Shanghai and China’s northeastern province of Jilin accounted for more than 95 percent of new infections across the mainland, with Shanghai seeing record highs. Local health officials announced on April 3 that 19 hospitals in Shanghai have partially suspended medical services because they  are overflowing with COVID-19 patients.

A 70-year-old CCU inpatient who was recently transferred to the city’s Yangsi Hospital has not been given the potassium he needs and is in critical condition, according to his family members. The man is now relying on six tablets a day to supply the potassium with no fruit or vegetable intake.

“There is no longer a nutritional supply for those who are critically ill,” said his son who preferred to remain unnamed. “My father had a heart attack, which led to a lung infection.”

He told the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times on April 3 that Yangsi Hospital was put under lockdown, with people, including doctors, nurses, caregivers, patients, and accompaniers, confined to their own levels. “I’ve heard of confirmed cases merged from the first, second, fourth, and fifth levels, but I alone cannot prove it.”

The Epoch Times rang Shanghai Yangsi Hospital the same day. A doctor who answered the phone confirmed the lockdown but said he was barred from knowing how serious the outbreak was.

“I’m one of the staff here, but even I do not know how many [new infections] there are in the hospital, and it’s not proper for me to ask either.”

Epoch Times Photo
Health workers wearing protective gear prepare equipment in preparation for testing people for the COVID-19 coronavirus at a compound in Shanghai on March 23, 2022. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)

The son said all efforts to contact local authorities have led nowhere, yet his post pleading for help on Chinese Twitter-like Weibo was quickly censored and removed from the platform. “I was just confused that many efforts got wasted on this [rather than what truly matters],” he said.

“[My father’s] life and death now lie in the lap of the gods.”

30 Cases Under-Reported

A patient revealed that another Shanghai hospital, named Tongkang, had concealed the extent of its current COVID-19 outbreak from authorities.

Wei Yan (alias), said at least 30 elderly people in Shanghai Tongkang Hospital had tested positive for COVID-19 as of April 1. She later found the outbreak numbers to have been under-reported upon checking with local authorities.

The hospital is seening a serious shortage of nursing workers as many have been pulled away. Worrying about her 95-year-old hospitalized grandmother, Wei decided to go to Tongkang Hospital as a volunteer; but the hospital later denied her entry, citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) of Shanghai.

“The hospital did not report the outbreak at all,” she told the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times on April 2, following a fact check with the Shanghai center. “No one at the CDPC knew there were positive cases in this hospital before I reported [them].”

The Epoch Times repeatedly called Shanghai Tongkang Hospital for comment, but the calls went unanswered. Wei said even workers in the hospital were uninformed of what was happening due to the cover-up, let alone the patients and their families.

Shanghai reported a city record of over 9,000 COVID-19 cases on April 3, compared to 8,226 cases a day earlier.

The current two-stage lockdown in the financial hub began on March 28 and has massively disrupted daily life and business operations. It was initially scheduled to end at 5 a.m. local time on April 5. However, authorities said on Monday that the city will remain under lockdown as it sent the military and 2,000 healthcare workers into Shanghai to help test all of its 26 million residents for COVID-19.

Gu Xiaohua and Gao Miao contributed to this report.

Rita Li

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Rita Li is a reporter with The Epoch Times, focusing on China-related topics. She began writing for the Chinese-language edition in 2018.



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